While living and working in Edinburgh in 2008 I set out to write one million words in 366 days... but only managed 800,737.

Friday, December 19, 2008

*sniff*

Well, my laptop has just gone bye-bye. Don't worry, I'll see it again in 150 days, give or take. Along with other possessions Marisa and I can't bear to part with but can't lug around four continents in our packs, my laptop will be cruising the high seas back to New Zealand. Barring catastrophe(s), the box will beat me home.

I'm using my landlord's laptop to type this, if you were wondering.

I could have knuckled down and written on this computer this morning after taping the box shut, but I couldn't face it. It felt unfaithful. Me and that black slab of increasing obsolescence have been through a lot these past twelve months. Sadly, it won't be around to see my eight hundredth thousand word of 2008.

2 comments:

Hi,I'm a reporter for the Edinburgh Evening News and have just come across your blog. Sounds like a rather novel idea and I'd be interested in finding out a bit more about you and your quest.It looks like you're leaving/ have left Edinburgh now so I hope I'm not too late to catch you.You can contact me on 0131 620 8741 or email fay.sinclair@edinburghnews.com if you are able and willing.Fay Sinclair

Thanks for the photos of Edinburgh - fond memories for me as a Chamber Maid at the North British Hotel during the Edinburgh Festival, a Secretary on a new "Estate" somewhere, and a flat in Leith and my first ever Xmas alone with strangers - 1972... not to mention the fabulous bars back then on George Street and does anyone recall Kelly's Cavern on Leopold Place?

Bonus Material

buy NZ books

"For anyone interested in New Zealand writing, this is a book worth picking up." David Larsen, NZ Herald 29/09/08 (full review here)

"If you only have time for one new local writer in your life then make it Sue Orr." Nicky Pellegrino, NZ Herald 15/09/08 (full review here).

Enter your search terms

Web

this blog

Submit search form

"In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what’s human and magical that still live and glow despite the times’ darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it’d find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."